Checkmate
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Knight to E6, or, how queens and lords fall in love. Dove/Ferdy
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is a break from Mirayle and Tales. It is me stretching my authorial wings and leaping off the nearest tree-branch, and hopefully not crashing to the ground. Remember, this is part one of two, so it is worth putting on alert! _**Please read and review!**_

**Disclaimer:** Tamora Pierce owns T- I mean, the Copper Isles.

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**01 Motion**

Dove loves to move. People think of her as still, quiet, calm, but when she moves it's like a snake striking: a burst of breathtaking speed that leaves slower men and women behind. This applies to everything (archery, politics, chess) but Ferdy first thinks it when he sees her small face burst into the most vivid smile he's ever seen.

**02 Cool**

One day, Ferdy Tomang sees his queen pick up a chess piece and hold it consideringly in the palm of her hand, and sigh almost inaudibly, and put it down again. He is there in two strides, and picks up the chess-piece himself, turning it over in his hands. "Your highness? May I ask a boon?"

"Yes?"

"Will you teach me to play?"

The room is cool, despite the heat of the midday sun, and Dove feels a warmth in her that cannot be attributed to the weather. "If you wish it."

The chess-piece was a queen.

**03 Young**

Dove was too young, by normal reckoning, to lose her father and brother and gain a throne, but Dove isn't normal. Still, sometimes she curls up alone in her bed and wishes for Sarai to hold her and comfort her, or Aly or Junai to watch over her, silent and vigilant, or Winna to kiss her forehead and banish her nightmares.

**04 Last**

It was the last one that did for his eye, of course, just when he thought they were all gone, and sometimes the blinding (_literally_, he thinks, the shadow of irreverent Ferdy Tomang snickering in the corners of his mind) pain returns in his nightmares and he wakes with his night-shirt soaked through with sweat and the empty socket of one eye aching.

**05 Wrong**

She was wrong to write Ferdy off as another of her sister's fools, she realises as she teaches him chess. He is a quick learner and attentive pupil.

**06 Gentle**

There is nothing _remotely_ gentle about the remorseless way she chases his king all over the board.

**07 One**

Being half-blind is strange, really- it's not that you see black in one eye, it's that you see nothing at all. It changes your perspective forever, and Ferdy thinks that he is closer to having integrity now with just the one eye than he was with two. Dove agrees, and it's only then that he finds out he spoke aloud.

**08 Thousand**

A thousand things to do every day, a thousand duties, complaints, courtiers and orders, but Dove is damned if she's going to miss Ferdy's chess lesson, now set for six bells after noon when calm twilight is just coming, because she finds it relaxing. And anyway, he's improved so much.

**09 King**

He swore fealty to her, and she accepted it as his sovereign: he offered her friendship, and she accepted it as an equal.

**10 Learn**

If you'd told Ferdy Tomang five years ago he'd learn most in his life not from his tutors, nor his friends nor his father, but from an eighteen-year-old girl-queen, he would have laughed.

**11 Blur**

One evening, after a particularly stressful day of talks and diplomatic treaties and yet more convincing a gaggle of foolish diplomats that a teenager can talk politics too (she thought that would end with her eighteenth birthday, but no, apparently not) Ferdy looks at her with a tiny worried frown between delicately arched eyebrows and concern in eyes that are supposed to glitter with mischief and mockery and asks her if she's quite sure she's feeling all right. She snaps at him, patience worn to a thread, and feels a knife-sharp pang of regret as she sees him draw away from her, back into his courtier's fragile shell, behind the barriers of Your Majesty and My Lord Tomang, and they begin to play.

But it's not right. Her fingers feel slow and clumsy, and she is too warm, and she feels a little nauseous; and then the chess-piece she was holding drops from lax fingers and she faints dead away: Ferdy surges to his feet, knocking chessboard and pieces every which way, and manages to catch her before her head hits the marble floor.

He doesn't tell her for a long time, but he is secretly furious with her for forgetting to drink enough water during the baking hot day to keep herself hydrated.

**12 Wait**

He used to be in love with her sister, he thinks, irrationally terrified as healers buzz around his queen in a room he is not allowed entrance to even though she's only fainted, and she's still so young and so busy, he'll bet love is the last thing she's thinking of. But he'll wait for her.

**13 Change**

When Dove started filling out properly in strange places and growing into her looks just as Aunt Nuritin said she would, and she complained that she didn't want to wear dresses that showed her off, Aly nearly had hysterics and assured her that one day she would think otherwise. Dove curses Aly as she stares at her reflection in the long mirror; why does she always have to be _right_?

**14 Command**

When she comes across some utter sap, a hot-headed young scion of a rather minor raka noble house, threatening Ferdy with a duel for spending so much time with the twice-royal queen and –well, she didn't quite catch it- something about her innocence- she finds herself bearing down on him like divine vengeance, and ordering him to quiet himself now and apologise to Lord Tomang, who fought for her in the revolution and has always been her loyal subject. There is so much cold anger in her voice that the boy blanches, and so does everyone nearby, but Ferdy merely bows with a kind of quiet dignity, and thanks her for her kind words, though he believes Master Raishang has heard unfounded gossip and was not to blame for his conclusions. And because it is Ferdy, she listens to him, and calms down.

**15 Hold**

When playing chess, one naturally concentrates on the board and on one's opponent, which does not explain why Dove cannot help noticing Ferdy's long, elegant fingers flex and grasp as they take up a piece, hold it for a moment, hesitating, and then put it in its new position.

**16 Need**

Her country needs her, but she, she has come to realise, needs him, because she has no friend like him.

**17 Vision**

Of _course_ it would be one of Aly's triplets who nearly drowns in the fishpond (blessedly, one of the ones that hasn't got piranhas in.) Of _course_. Toddlers get in to all sorts of trouble, and naturally Aly's children would be especially difficult. And of _course_ it would be Junim, stupid boy, always testing the limits.

The wails of fear aren't very loud, but the bang and dark purple fire he sends up certainly are, and Dove is on her feet and out of the council room without even finishing her sentence, visions before her eyes of Aly's small son, her gods-son, choking and dying in a fishpond, which is desperately inappropriate for such an intrepid boy. But fast as she is, Ferdy is faster, and he is hauling the boy out of the water even as Nawat drops from a nearby tree, ashen-faced and Aly hurries in, wide-eyed with horror, and Junim chokes and coughs up water and wails for his mother, and Dove has to sit down and cover her mouth with her trembling hands, for relief is coursing in her bones like influenza and she is shaking with it. And then she looks at Ferdy, meaning to thank him, but he's looking at Aly and Nawat and Junim, and there is the most gentle smile on his face- and actually, she _can't_ speak. Because she wants someone to smile at her like that.

**18 Attention**

He drills a group of noblemen's sons in swordplay now. Not swordplay the way Tortallans go about swordplay; Ferdy's swordplay relies on speed and agility rather than pure strength, but swordplay. He enjoys it, they obey him without question and adore him for reasons Dove doesn't totally understand but that, she gathers, have something to do with the eyepatch and his gift for sword-fighting. When she passes by one of the lessons on the way to the library and stops to watch, as soon as he notices her he calls "Atten..._tion_!" and every one of them snaps to attention, and she can't help smiling impartially at them (_but especially at him_) when she acknowledges the salute.

**19 Soul**

The people like to say she's the heart and soul of the country, so Ferdy hears. They like to tell stories about the girl who wasn't yet a queen who went down to the markets and listened and learned, and won affection just by caring without being stupid or sappy about it. They knew it mattered to her, so they loved her, and they called her the country's heart and soul. Ferdy's lips twitch reluctantly whenever he hears such things, because even after being filtered through a healthy gossip grapevine the action speaks so much of Dove.

**20 Picture**

The official portrait shows a thirteen-year-old Dove, straight and proud in the gown she wore for her coronation, with the crown on her head and her hair simply dressed, one hand resting on the kudarung Kypry's neck; his wings are raised, and in her other hand, she holds a scroll tied with red ribbon. Ferdy detests this portrait, because it doesn't show the Dove he knows.

**21 Fool**

He's a damned fool, he tells himself. She has to marry for the good of her country.

**22 Mad**

She's mad, she tells herself despondently, but at least it's probably a passing kind of madness. You're supposed to fall in love when you're a teenager, right?

**23 Child**

"What'cha doing, Auntie Dove?"

Dove pauses, then moves a knight, and smirks as Ferdy mumbles something unrepeatable and puts himself to the task of extricating his king from check. "I'm playing chess with Lord Tomang, Junim. Would you like to watch?"

**24 Now**

These are Dove's favourite minutes of the day, with nothing to worry about but the chessboard in front of her and Ferdy's next move.

**25 Shadow**

Once over one of their chess games, she asks him if he had loved Sarai, and there is a shadow on his face as he answers: "I thought so." Later, he realises that he never had done. Later, he tells her that he didn't fight to defend Balitang House in Sarai's name, but for the sake of something he saw in the face of the sister he'd always overlooked; something that still eludes him today.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** The second half. :) **_Please read and review!_**

**Disclaimer:** See previous.

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26 Goodbye

When he tells her (two weeks in advance, and before even Aly had heard a whisper of his plans) that he needs to go to Tomang to order his estate, and expects to be gone a month, she has an irrational wish to tell him he must not go.

27 Hide

When he has gone she returns to the usual pavilion at the usual time, but with just a book to read, and finds it very lonely. Worse, she catches sight of a noble she knows is trying to court her and failing miserably hurrying towards the pavilion, and she has to slip away into the gardens and hide in Aly's rooms for three hours, playing with the triplets. She is miserable. This sort of thing shouldn't happen to a queen.

28 Fortune

He is bored at Tomang. His estate is, of course, making him a fortune, and he has made doubly sure that the new reforms to make things fairer between raka and luarin are going as well as can reasonably be expected, and he is most profitably occupied, and Mother has indeed invited to stay many lovely and charming ladies who want to marry him... but there is one hour in the evening he doesn't know what to do with, because he ought to be playing chess with Dove.

29 Safe

She will never forget the look on his face when she has Aunt Nuritin rescue him from a lady who may or may not actually be a lady but certainly loves the eyepatch: it is one of overwhelming relief. _Gods be thanked, I'm safe. _And then his eye slides to her, and a wry smile curls one corner of his lips and warmth enters his expression. _Well, that was ridiculous, wasn't it? Thank you for rescuing me._

30 Ghost

On Elsren's birthday she is always subdued. When she suddenly says "I tried to teach Elsren to play chess, you know", just as he puts her king in check, he looks at her for a moment, not simpering with sympathy but really, genuinely sorry for it, and it occurs to her that there are perhaps five other people in the world she could have said that too.

31 Book

Some people give her laws for her nineteenth birthday, which get sent back with spelling corrections and 'I would prefer not to erode the civil liberties of the people on this island, please reconsider this' written in the margin. Some people give her jewellery, some of which she wears. Some people give her flowers, some of which go to brighten Balitang House. Some people give her dresses, which she sometimes keeps. But the people who know her well give her books.

Ferdy gives her a copy of _The Game of Kings_- a book about chess recently written by a Tortallan nobleman. He imagines it is the one book on the subject she might not have read, and it seems appropriate.

32 Eye

After their chess lessons have been going on for more than six months, and the Court has mostly got used to the fact that they insist on playing chess together, Dove asks if he would mind if she sees the scar under the eyepatch, and he asks why.

She says, _I want to know what it is that you're frightened of showing_.

He answers, _I'm not frightened of showing it. I just don't like to alarm small children and elderly ladies._

She gives him a look.

He admits, _All right, I'm as vain as a parrot too_, and he takes off the eyepatch.

It is not gruesome; there is no real scar. It is just that the eye-socket is empty, covered over now by skin, which is scary enough in itself, but Dove does not flinch. Instead, she leans forward, across the chessboard, and reaches out with one elegant hand, fingers brushing the skin on his cheekbone and beside the eye-socket, staring intently. She wants to know what damage he has suffered in her service; she wishes she could make recompense. If he knew this, he would tell her that her friendship is more than recompense, but he does not: he merely watches her small, serious face, and wonders if this is what being in love is like.

33 Never

Some fool has the infernal cheek to rant about how Dove should never have had the throne because she's half-raka, and when his friends try to hush him and point out Ferdy the fool –who was, to be fair, quite drunk- has the stupidity to say "Well, you think the sh- same too, don't you, m'lord?" and while Ferdy is frozen with anger, his face gone quite white and his slender hands clenching, blithely continues "Usher- ushurping half-raka bi-" and, oh, that sets Ferdy's temper alight and the drunken sot finds himself up against a wall with a handful of his tunic in Ferdy's fist, and suddenly very, very sober. Ferdy hears himself, in a voice that seems not his own, it is so full of fury, tell the drunk that he is just the kind of prejudiced bastard who almost ruined the country once, and that he, Ferdolin Tomang, will never betray the rightful Queen of the Copper Isles. And then Ferdy drops the fool, and turns scornfully away, recommending disdainfully to the fool's friends that they had better take him away and give him something for the hangover.

He has not shown so much emotion since the revolution, because it is easier to be sardonic and well-turned out at court than it is to wear your heart on a sleeve. It's like having your own personal armour.

34 Sing

Dove does not sing, but sometimes she catches Ferdy humming something under his breath or singing a snatch of a familiar song, and he looks embarrassed and stops. She wonders how to tell him that it sounds good without being too much of an awkward teenager.

35 Sudden

Duchess Winnamine corners him at one of Dove's star-gazing parties. "Duchess Winnamine, I am enchanted," he says, trying to ignore the determined look in her eyes. "For what reason does a lovely and sensible lady such as yourself seek out the company of an amoral rake such as myself?"

Duchess Winnamine gives him a look that is, against all the laws of inheritance, just like Dove's. "Lord Tomang, I wish an explanation of your intentions towards my stepdaughter."

He looks extremely startled. "Isn't this a little su-"

"It is _not_, Lord Tomang."

"Then..." He meets her eyes. "I am her Majesty's loyal servant and chess opponent, and, I hope... friend." A typical wry grin and shrug of the shoulders. "I hope."

She eyes him briefly, and then smiles. "You have changed, Lord Tomang, since you courted Saraiyu."

"I like to think so," he agrees.

"It is a change for the better," she informs him.

36 Stop

"It is perhaps time, your Majesty, to consider a marriage alliance."

_Stop_, she wants to say. _Stop. This, I will not hear. _

But she is Dovasary Haiming Temaida Balitang, and she must listen.

37 Time

"Do they upset you when they talk of marriage?" Winna asks, her brown eyes kind. "You need not listen yet. You are only nineteen. There's time and to spare to think about it."

38 Wash

"Lord Tomang!" she exclaims as she sees him arrive, returning to his rooms in the Palace, and smiles broadly.

He turns, startled, and smiles in return, then bows. "Your Majesty. It is good to come back to Rajmuat."

"I can't imagine you were bored at Tomang, my lord," she teases, and his repressed grimace tells the whole story. "Will you play chess with me at the usual time this evening, Lord Tomang, or are there other demands on your time?"

"Indeed no, your Majesty, I would be delighted to play. Forgive me-" he wrinkles his nose comically- "I have been riding all day, and I am desperately in need of a bath."

She laughs. "You are excused."

39 Torn

Dove thinks she may be falling in love. She hopes she will not turn into the heroine of one of Sarai's unspeakable novels, torn between duty and love, because that would be nothing short of horrendous.

40 History

Ferdy takes a special interest –fuelled by vanity- in the history of the revolution a Tortallan approached him about writing, the same Tortallan, in fact, who wrote _The Game of Kings_- which earns the man Dove's interest and co-operation. Myles of Olau speaks surprisingly fluent Kyprish, probably drinks too much, and quickly becomes one of Ferdy's friends. Ferdy has the wit to realise that Myles probably extracts more from him than Ferdy does from Myles, but he doesn't mind, actually.

Myles wanted an eyewitness, someone with a decent-sized part in the proceedings but not so close to them that they would be wildly biased. Ferdy fits that description, more or less, and he has the only question he ever runs into trouble with is being asked to describe Queen Dovasary. Not physically- Myles has already seen her, and played games of chess with her –but as a... well, as a friend might.

"Um," he says, uncharacteristically, and fingers his eyepatch (blue with little stars embroidered on it) in bewilderment. He doesn't know what to say. "Well. Queen Dovasary is... she always tries to be fair and just about everything... watchful... she's very, very clever... she loves stargazing and chess, and knowledge for knowledge's sake... She's devoted to family... to her people, her country... Oh, damn it, Myles, I give up! Ask some other courtier to describe the indescribable!"

He does not see Myles glance at his elegant wife, Eleni, with carefully-hidden dawning comprehension in his eyes. He does not see Eleni smile more openly at him. _Darling, you've been here two months, and you hadn't noticed?_

41 Power

Dove has the power to do lots of things. She has the power to order death, to preserve life, to increase her country's wealth and standing or destroy it. She has the power to banish and to welcome. She finds this uncomfortable, but on occasion useful.

When it comes to Ferdy, however, she would prefer that he make his own decisions. Even if that does include wearing peculiarly coloured eyepatches.

"They distract attention from my general thick-headedness," he explains with a winning smile, and Dove retorts that she supposes he has a point.

(Actually, she finds that quite sweet.)

42 Bother

"Bother, and blast- oh, and damn! _Kyprioth_! I have other things to do than sit in the Divine Realms! I do have a kingdom to run, as I am sure you are aware!"

"I am indeed, Dovasary, and I will not keep you long. I merely wish to discuss the question of heirs. I thought you could return to the ancient custom of raka queens-"

"You mean keeping a harem of up to a hundred male concubines? _No_!"

43 God

When Kyprioth appears in Ferdy's rooms, Ferdy is stark naked, dripping wet, and most astonished. "I... er... what an unexpected surprise, sir!" he manages, seizing the nearest towel.

"Bad moment?" Kyprioth enquires.

Ferdy thinks about saying yes, since he had been enjoying his bath, but after all, this is a god he's facing. "Not particularly, no. I can think of worse."

Kyprioth grins. "I begin to like you, young luarin. And your taste in eyepatches." He pokes the latest one (green, small bronze kudarung pattern.)

"Is there something you want from me, sir?" Ferdy asks, rattled.

"No, not really," Kyprioth says, leaning against the wall and examining his fingernails. Ferdy will be extremely surprised if dirt ever gets under divine fingernails. "I merely wished to discover if you are the person Queen Dovasary thinks you are."

"You could have done this without appearing to me in the bathtub, sir," Ferdy points out, adding hastily, "Not that I'm not honoured..." Curiosity gets the better of him. "And- am I the person the queen thinks I am?"

The god looks up from his fingernails. "Oh, yes. And more." And then he just vanishes.

"Well, that was a strange conversation," Ferdy says to thin air. And somewhere, Kyprioth giggles. It's just too easy to mess with mortals' heads, but sometimes it's _fun_.

44 Wall

"That defensive wall is not going to help you."

"You can't climb it."

"No, but I can jump over it."

"Not if I do _this_!"

A white knight is snatched off the board with indecorous glee, a black bishop replacing it. Dove curses. The problem with teaching people to play chess is that they learn.

45 Naked

It's not just that he doesn't care to frighten elderly ladies and small children, and is as vain as a parrot; he feels naked and vulnerable without his eyepatch.

46 Drive

Riddles he can't solve drive him mad, so when Dove spots him looking perplexed by a choice one dished up by the Yamani ambassador, she quietly moves over and solves it.

It's not as if she was listening to his conversation, though. Oh, no.

47 Harm

Dove is enjoying the picnic. She has been allowed a few moments' peace; Petranne has organised a dance, out in the sunshine, and she can read quietly in the shade.

A flicker of movement catches her eye, and she lowers the book. Cold fear grips her heart; a tiny green snake is on her bare ankle. "Ah!" she gasps, unable to restrain a reflexive shudder, and the snake bites. She cries out, and drops her book; the pain of the bite and the venom is like acid in her blood.

Ferdy's head whips round so fast it burns the muscles in his neck, and he is at her side in less than a moment; she is shaking with horror and fear, and blood runs from two small puncture-holes on her ankle. "Dove!" he whispers, horrified. "What happened?" He feels like he has failed for not protecting her.

48 Precious

This is what people say: It is a shock to everyone. The queen is still in the healers' care. The fever has not broken. The queen has not regained consciousness.

Duchess Winnamine and Princess Petranne ask him if he will come and sit with them, to wait for the queen to recover, because he is her friend. This is what he says: Yes. I'm going to the temple, to put these on the altar (he shows them a pair of bracelets, with emeralds on) but I'll be back soon, and then I would be delighted to join you.

Those are precious, the Duchess remarks neutrally. Princess Petranne watches him carefully, through slightly narrowed brown eyes.

There are some things that are more precious, your Grace, he says.

49 Hunger

"She's awake!" Princess Petranne squeaks, jumping up and down for joy, face flushed. "She's awake! And the fever's gone, and she says she's hungry!"

50 Believe

"You know," Dove says, knees tucked under her chin, sitting beside Ferdy as they look out on the capital at sunrise, "I believe we can make something of this."

He says nothing, just takes her hand and squeezes it gently, because he believes that too.


End file.
